Of Lions and Dragons
by ArwenLalaith
Summary: While working a case in New Jersey, Emily falls ill and House must race against the clock to save her. Meanwhile, the rest of the team finds themselves profiling the doctors working to save her.
1. Chapter 1

I have discovered through trial and error, primarily the latter, that none of us stands at the helm of life's great ocean liner. Control is an illusion, destination itself is a pitiful chimera, we are at best mere passengers aboard a drifting vessel.

_Unknown_

*****

The BAU had been called out to New Jersey to help with a case and, after several frustrating days of no results, they had finally identified the person responsible. Currently, they had him cornered on the second floor balcony of a rather dilapidated tenement building. Things had gotten out of hand rather quickly as the unsub revealed the teenage girl he was holding hostage, threatening to kill her if anyone made a move. So, here they were, in a guns-drawn stand-off with the suspect, neither side daring to move and break the moment of mutually assured destruction. The unsub stared down at the police officers and FBI agents on the black-top below as he held the barrel of a handgun to the temple of the girl held fast against his body in a head-lock grasp. On an adrenaline high, he didn't hear the SWAT agents creeping along the ceiling of the building and through the next apartments.

"Lower your weapon!" someone shouted, but the command was ignored. "I said, lower your weapon!"

All of a sudden, Emily dropped to one knee and brought her hand up to the side of her head, clutching at her left ear. "What was that?" she asked Reid, who stood nearest to her. Her eyes were wide in alarm.

"What was what?" Reid asked, confused. He attempted to keep an trained on both her and the unsub at the same time.

Emily's sudden movement startled the unsub and he loosed a single gunshot. The shot went wide of where he was aiming and hit Emily in the upper arm. In the moment of chaos, the hostage managed to wrestle herself free and she ran for her life. There were multiple gunshots in response to the first firing as several of the officers below reacted. The unsub was dead five times before he hit the floor.

Those nearest immediately rushed to Emily's side and began first aid for the bullet wound. "That noise... Before the gunshots, something exploded," she said. She raised an eyebrow at the continued look of confusion on the faces of those around her as she heard the noise a second time and clutched tighter at the side of her head. "There it is again! Didn't you hear it?"

"There was no noise Em..." Morgan said, looking worried.

"What's happening?" she asked, fear edging into her voice as she heard the noise for a third time. She dropped the other knee so she was kneeling on the pavement.

"We need to get her to a hospital," Reid said. "It'll be faster to just take her ourselves than to wait for an ambulance."

"What's the closest hospital?" Hotch demanded of the nearest officer.

"Princeton-Plainsboro," the officer replied without hesitation, "It's about 5 miles south of here."

******

House was in his office avoiding clinic duty, as usual, still riding the high from solving the last case in a burst of genius remarkable even for him. The lack of a case the latter half of the week resulted in him pretending to do his clinic hours for a short while, annoying the heck out of patients and staff, and generally causing chaos wherever possible. Today had been particularly unproductive, he hadn't even gotten in to work until almost 12:30 and had been hiding from Cuddy ever since. Currently, he was ostentatiously strumming his guitar, the noise twanging along the entire floor, and pretending as if he was unaware of Cuddy's presence just outside the door.

Letting out a huffing sigh as she entered the room, Cuddy rolled her eyes as she unplugged the guitar from the amplifier. She tossed a file onto his desk as she summed up the case in a way that would captivate his interest. "FBI agent experiences sudden-onset exploding head syndrome while in a stand-off with a suspect. She was admitted with a gunshot wound to the upper arm, which refused to clot. The exploding head progressed to full-blown seizures, which she's had 3 of since then."

Grinning lecherously and giving a suggestive eyebrow raise, House snatched the file off the desk and brushed past her on his way out the door. "You had me at female FBI agent..."

A/N: Just testing the waters to see if there is an audience receptive to a House/Criminal Minds crossover. Let me know if you like idea!


	2. Chapter 2

"Exploding head syndrome and bleeding problem, go." For a moment there was silence as Cameron, Foreman, and Chase considered the symptoms scrawled on the white board.

"No history of epilepsy," Cameron mused after examining the file.

"We should still do an MRI, Foreman argued, "Research shows a link between neurological problems and bleeding disorders."

"What if the bleeding problem came first?" asked Chase. "Seizures could have been caused by a bleed in the brain."

"Find out which came first, the chicken or the egg... Run a PT, PTT, and bleeding time and do an MRI," House ordered.

******

Five anxious agents paced around Emily's hospital bed while she attempted to talk down an even more worried sixth over the phone. "Garcia, I swear, I'm fine!"

"You got _shot_," she said, as if Emily needed reminding.

"It was just a little knick, they didn't even have to do surgery to fix the wound. Really, I'm fine."

"If you were fine, they wouldn't have admitted you..." Garcia protested. "So why don't you just go ahead and tell me what's happening so I won't have to hack into your medical records."

Sighing exasperatedly, Emily relented, "I had a minor form of a seizure..."

Reid interrupted her, not loudly, but loud enough for Garcia to overhear, "Minor? You had one complex partial seizure and then three secondarily generalized grand-mal seizures... That's not minor!"

Rolling her eyes, Emily continued, "...And a slight clotting problem. They're just keeping me here until they find out what's causing them. Which shouldn't take too long, apparently this Dr. House is one of the best diagnosticians in the country."

Adequately placated for the time being, Garcia sighed, "Fine, but I fully expect to be told the second you know anything more!"

"I promise."

Just then there was a the sound of the door sliding open as Chase entered the room. Smiling warmly, he introduced himself to the concerned agents. "I'm Dr. Chase, I'm on Dr. House's team. I need to run a bleeding time test to assess if there is a problem with your clotting factors."

Emily watched intently as he wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm and inflated it slightly, then made a small cut on her lower arm and started a timer. "How does this test work?" asked JJ.

"We measure the amount of time it takes for the cut to stop bleeding and we can tell if the clotting reaction isn't working properly based on whether the time is within range. If it's not, then we run more blood tests to figure out which disorder is causing the reaction to malfunction and hopefully we can correct it," he explained. He gently used a tissue to wipe away the blood.

"Statistically speaking, there are approximately 8733 deaths each year from blood conditions, which only comes out to around 2 deaths for every 100 000," Reid said.

Turning to give him a curious look, Chase managed to keep his look of surprise to a minimum. "Well... most blood disorders aren't fatal..."

Reid interrupted him saying, "True, although there are over 350 000 hospitalizations per year resulting from blood disorders."

Emily turned and glared at him. "Reid! Not the time or the place..."

******

"MRI was clean," Foreman informed House as they walked down the hallway. "No clots, no bleeds, no tumors."

"So that just leaves bleeding disorder," House said.

"Nope, blood tests were clean and clotting time was normal, five and a half minutes," Chase said.

"How do you screw up a simple bleeding test?" House asked.

"I didn't screw it up! It's not a bleeding disorder. What about..."

House cut him off, "It's a bleeding disorder. Cameron, go run the test again."

Chase sighed exasperatedly as Cameron headed off the the patient's room to redo the test. "I _didn't _screw it up!" he repeated louder.

******

As Cameron dabbed at the blood oozing from the cut and glanced at her watch, she said to Emily, "I'll bet you're getting tired of all the tests..."

Emily attempted to return the young doctor's friendly smile, "Well, I wasn't expecting my doctors to stab me repeatedly." She wasn't sure if it ended up sounding witty or annoyed.

"I'm sorry, usually we only have to run this test once, but we have conflicting results..."

Being profilers, the team couldn't help but notice her overly friendly mannerisms and too-concerned nature. Subconsiously, they started to wonder about her motives, she seemed to be over-compensating for something...

Beginning to feel awkward upon sensing the abnormal quiet and the increase in attention focused on her, Cameron looked down at her watch and worry crossed her features. She again dabbed at the blood, but blood continued to seep from the wound with increasing volume.

The team sensed her alarm and instantly all five were tense with subtle panic. "What's going on?" Morgan asked. "Why hasn't the bleeding stopped?"

Applying pressure to the wound and raising the arm above heart-level, Cameron said, "I don't know..."


	3. Chapter 3

"It _is _a bleeding disorder," Cameron proclaimed, "I had to stop the bleeding after almost a half hour."

"So you're saying Chase _did _screw up?" House asked, clearly jabbing him with the poorly hidden insult.

"Or Cameron did..." Foreman pointed out.

Before Chase could defend himself, Cameron cut in, "No, I'm not saying that... We should run labs to check her clotting factors before jumping to any conclusions."

Rolling his eyes in mock concession, House sighed, "Fine, run the tests... We can play 'which doctor is more incompetent' later."

******

Cameron was on her way to Emily's room to draw blood for the tests when she heard a sudden commotion issuing from down the hall. Sprinting towards their source, she found a panicked Emily holding her hand against her right temple, blood seeping out from between her fingers. JJ was returning to the room from the nurse's station with help, while Morgan and Reid were trying to calm Emily.

"She complained that she felt itchy, but she fell asleep so we thought it wasn't too severe. But she kept scratching at her head in her sleep until it started to bleed profusely," Reid explained.

Cameron was alarmed when she moved Emily's hand away to examine the damage and saw a gaping hole extending through to her brain. Pressing a thick wad of gauze over the wound, she shouted to one of the nurses to inject a dose of sedative. She ordered another to schedule an emergency surgery to repair the laceration.

******

Standing in the observation room above the operating theatre, House turned away from the carnage below and said, "Well, what do you know... Chase was right after all. After scratching an extra hole in her head, she didn't bleed to death."

"She clotted on her own?" Foreman asked incredulously.

"Sure did," House replied. "Funny, huh? The mysterious case of the disappearing clotting reaction... First there's a bleeding disorder, then there isn't, then there is again, and now there isn't... _again_."

"That doesn't make any sense," Chase said.

"Well, let's hope we find something on the clotting factor test then..."

"Shouldn't we talk about what caused her to scratch clean through to her brain?" Cameron asked.

"Run a liver function test," House ordered, "Elevated bilirubin can cause itching."

Cameron debated, "What about one of the other possible causes? It could be psychogenic itching or MS or..."

House cut her off, "Once again, her MRI was clean, as in no encephalitis, meningitis, or tumors. _Run a liver function test_."

******

As they sat about Emily's bed, waiting for her to recover from the effects of the surgical sedatives, the team discussed the doctors in whose care she had been entrusted. "There's no way anyone's _that _nice for no reason. She has to be overcompensating for something," Morgan said.

"Why can't someone be nice with no ulterior motive?" JJ argued.

"I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being nice... But most people are nice when they can benefit from it and how many doctors have you met that were so apologetic? I'm just saying that it was a little too _Miss America _if you ask me..."

"Maybe she was genuinely sorry for all the painful tests... Working in a hospital every day, putting hundreds of patients through repeated painful procedures can't be easy. Maybe she just needs to feel like she made their stay here a little less awful somehow," she seemed to feel that she had reached the crux of the agrument. "We should give her the benefit of the doubt."

"Or," Reid interrupted, "We could just find out what she's hiding..."

Morgan seemed very keen on that idea, "I'll bet Garcia's already looked up every shred of information on these doctors anyway..."

"I was going to suggest that we just ask Dr. Cameron..." Reid said, seemingly startled at how quickly his idea had gotten out of hand.

******

"Lab results are for the patient's liver function tests are in," Foreman told House, who appeared to be packing up for the night. "Are you leaving?"

"Yeah," he answered with his typical nonchalance.

"Did you miss the part about our patient dying if we don't find out what's wrong so we can get her a new liver?" he asked incredulously.

"Actually, I did, since you haven't told me what the tests said."

From the chart, Foreman recited, "Albumin was very low and her ALT and bilirubin levels were off the charts. She won't last another two days without a new liver..."


	4. Chapter 4

"We're searching the donor banks right now... The transplant committee has already approved the surgery," Foremen informed Emily and the team.

"Can't one of us give her a piece of our liver?" Morgan asked.

"Well, the chances that one of you is a match is unlikely, but anyone who has A positive blood should be tested."

"I'm A positive," Hotch volunteered.

"So am I," Morgan added. Foreman gestured that they should follow him, as he lead them to have their blood tested.

Looking down at Emily, JJ squeezed her hand and brushed a lock of hair away from her jaundiced face. "See? Everything's going to be alright," she reassured her. But as she looked up at Reid who stood on the other side of the bed, it was clear that she was struggling to believe her own words.

******

Chase was once again drawing blood and was being bombarded with questions from the worried agents. "What are you testing for now?" Reid asked.

"We're just looking to make sure that she doesn't have any viruses that may infect the donor liver, such as Epstein-Barr or cytomegalovirus."

"So have you found a new liver?" Rossi asked.

"We're still waiting on the tests," Chase replied, "But we need to be ready the second we find one."

"Em, are you okay?" Morgan asked, noticing that she was rasping for breath. She shook her head, but was unable to say anything, still struggling to breathe. The monitors started to sound as her oxygen saturation plummeted.

Reading the monitors, Chase called for a nurse, "Pulmonary edema, stage two hypertensive crisis!" When two nurses came sprinting in, he continued, "Start her on oxygen and a sodium nitroprusside drip." The team was made to leave the room to pace nervously in the waiting room and hope that she would last long enough to have the transplant.

******

"She's in ICU, systolic is around 180, we're lowering it slowly to avoid hypoperfusing her organs," Chase said, jogging to catch up to House.

"Yeah, that sounds much worse than letting her high blood pressure cause stroke, myocardial infarction, or blindness..."

"Well, what would you suggest then?" Chase asked exasperatedly.

"How about, oh I don't know... _solving the case_..."

Foreman joined them as they entered the office. Giving Chase a superior look, he said, "Emily tested positive for von Willenbrand's... She _does _have a bleeding disorder."

"This is ridiculous," Chase said, "If she has vWD, how could she possibly clot on her own half the time?"

"What if it's related to her hypertensive crises?" Cameron asked. "She's clotting now and she's hypertensive..."

"Hypertensive crisis can active clotting factors, even in someone low on von Willenbrand's," House reasoned.

"That would explain why she clotted after lacerating her temple," Chase said.

"I know I get hypertensive when playing hide-and-seek with my brain," House said.

******

They had forgotten about Emily's promise to Garcia to keep her updated on her condition until the moment Morgan's phone rang.

"Why is Emily's name on the liver transplant list?" she asked, slightly frantically.

"What?" Morgan asked, a little taken aback. "How did you know... Have you flagged Emily's medical records?"

"No," she answered, a little too quickly. Changing the subject suddenly, she asked, "Why didn't someone tell me? You promised to keep me updated on her condition..."

"I'm sorry," he said sheepishly, "I guess we forgot... Everything just happened so quickly... She's in acute liver failure, they have two days to find her a new liver..."

Sighing, she asked, "Can I talk to her?"

Morgan hesitated, biting his lip, knowing that she would take this badly, "She's in ICU, unconscious... They're trying to get her blood pressure under control..." There was a crackling silence on the other end of the line for several moments. "Garcia?" he asked, hesitantly.

"Um..." she struggled to find her voice again. "I have to go," she said abruptly and a second later the call went dead.

******

Foreman quietly entered Emily's room where Hotch and Reid were keeping vigil, the others having gone to get something to eat. "I need to speak with you," he said to Hotch. Hotch nodded to Reid and followed Foreman outside the ICU. "You're a match for Emily's liver..."

Before he could say anything further, Hotch interrupted resolutely, "I want to give her half."

"Usually, before someone can donate part of their liver extensive testing and counselling is done... You need time to be able to change your mind," Foreman warned.

"She doesn't have time..." Hotch said matter-of-factly.

"There's a very real chance you could die during the procedure," he cautioned.

"I face that chance everyday... _This _is easy."

Foreman nodded, having had a feeling he would react that way. "We need an EKG, chest x-ray, and abdominal ultrasound. Surgery's scheduled for tomorrow morning."


	5. Chapter 5

"What the hell is going on down there?" came Garcia's voice through the phone. JJ winced at the volume of her voice. "Why has Hotch been admitted?"

"Relax, Garcia," JJ said calmingly. "He's donating part of his liver to Em."

There was an almost suspicious silence as if she were considering. "Oh..." After another moment of silence, she asked, "So, do they know what's wrong with her yet?"

JJ sighed, "Not yet... But the new liver will buy them time to figure it out." Silently, she thought, _I hope_...

******

"Hepatitis?"

"No, PCRs were normal."

"Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma?"

"Explains the bleeding, but probably not the neurological symptoms."

"Wilson's disease? It would explain the liver, bleeding, and neurological problems."

"No Kaiser-Fleischer rings in her eyes."

"Rings wouldn't necessarily present if there are neurological symptoms."

"Poisonous mushrooms?"

"She's not taking mushrooms, she works for the FBI, they do drug testing."

"Okay, but there's no time to test for any of these... She needs about eighty procedures before she even gets the transplant."

House interrupted their discussion/argument, "So multitask... Scrape her stomach for mushroom spores while you 'scope her bile duct, use the pantalope to check for cancer and Wilson's. Someone CT her liver while the other two check protein CA125 and CA19.5."

******

"Are you ready for this?" Rossi asked Hotch.

"For which part?" Hotch asked, "The surgery itself, the fact that I might die on the table, or that despite the new liver there's still a chance that she won't make it?"

Rossi looked taken aback for a moment before replying, "I thought you said you weren't nervous..."

"I'm not... It's just... What if it's all in vain? What if they can't fix her?"

******

Worried that something would go wrong during the procedure, the team was taking one last moment with Emily, despite the fact that she was still unconscious. "Each year, in the U.S., there are approximately 268 living donor liver transplants performed, while there are over 6000 deceased donor transplants. That's pretty minimal, considering that about 17 000 people are on the waiting list each year and about 2000 of those will die while waiting for a donor organ," Reid spouted. "Of the patients that receive a liver transplant, approximately 90% of them survive the first year. The number drops to only about 75% survival rate after five years. The first year survival rates fluctuate drastically for living donor transplants from year to year, as high as 92% and as low as 80%, while the rate for deceased donor transplants maintains a steady 86%. Living donor procedures are performed much more frequently in children, because they have smaller livers; their survival rates are actually almost 5% higher than those for an adult..."

"Reid!" JJ snapped, "Please stop! We're anxious enough already and this really isn't helping..."

"I'm sorry," he apologized, "I just can't help it when I get nervous."

Morgan sighed heavily and said, "I'm going to the chapel, I need to pray..."

"I'll go with you," Rossi said quickly, anxious to get away from the somber room.

******

In two connected operating rooms, two members of the team lay sedated, hooked up to machines, as surgeons began cutting into their livers. The surgeon carefully transecting Emily's liver called to the surgical team waiting to begin on Hotch, "All right, I'm good to go, you can start removing his liver."

As they began cutting into his liver, his heart rate monitor began to sound. "He's in v-fib! No pulse!" shouted a doctor.

"Paddles!" called another. "Charging!"

A shock sounded as an impulse was sent through his chest. "No change! Hit him again!"

In the operating theatre above, House turned to Cameron, Chase, and Foreman and said, "Gastric content negative for spores so no mushroom toxicity, copper levels were normal so no Wilson's, no sign of any cancers... You'd better figure out what Emily has or he's risked his life for nothing..."

******

"He went into cardiac arrest during the procedure, caused by hypoxia from hypoventilation." He paused and there was a palpable climb in anxiety. "However, we were able to restart his heart and the right lobe of his liver was successfully transplanted into Emily," the attending surgeon informed the anxious team.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. "Can we see them?" asked Morgan.

"They're both still unconscious. We've put Emily into a clean room as a precaution, considering the immuno-suppressant drugs to prevent graft-versus-host, but you can see Aaron."

******

"We've finished testing the tissue from Emily's liver," Foreman said, setting two sheets of paper in front of House.

"And?"

Pointing to the one on the left, Chase said, "Here's Emily's DNA..." Indicating the one on the right, he continued, "And here's the DNA from the liver..."

He squinted closely at the results in disbelief. "They don't match? That's impossible..."


	6. Chapter 6

Standing in silence, they considered how it was possible for one person to have two different sets of DNA... Each came up blank, unable to think of any logical explanation for this unexpected turn of events.

"Are you sure you didn't screw up the test?" House asked, "Your track record on this case hasn't been the best..."

Rolling his eyes, Chase snapped, "I didn't screw up the test. We ran it three times."

Rereading the chart, specifically the patient history, Cameron suddenly looked up. "Wait! She spent most of her life outside the country... What if she had a liver transplant while in some foreign country? If some third-world hack did the surgery, she probably wouldn't have gotten immuno-suppressants, leading her body to attack the foreign tissue. And, it certainly wouldn't be in her file."

"Unlikely," Foreman scoffed, "For one thing, she didn't have a scar and for another, her mother is an ambassador... If she needed medical attention, she would have gotten the best available doctor, they wouldn't have needed to resort to back-alley organ transplants."

"What about a DNA mutation?" Chase suggested, "Extreme UV radiation?"

"She looks like _Snow White_... There's no way she's gotten enough sun to mutate her genes," House refuted.

"Nitrous acid or ethidium bromide?" Cameron offered. "Or any number of mutagenic fungi?"

House's scoffed, "She's an FBI agent, not a chemist or a gardener."

"Who cares what caused the mutation?" Chase said. "We're wasting time... The liver transplant only bought us so much time. We need to go ahead and cut out the foreign cells... chances are they're not just in the liver."

"Where? How are we supposed to find the other cells without the rest of her body shutting down? It was purely by freak accident that we found these ones," Foreman said.

House smiled, as he did before beginning one of his metaphors. With a bad Texas accent, he narrated, "If you're goin' on a cattle drive, you don't want your prize steers gettin' mixed up with the neighbour's herd. So you brand 'em, that way you can always spot when your neighbour's hustlin' your heifers and send some cattle rustlers in after 'em."

Chase put the literal words to this thought, "Mark the DNA from the bad liver cells by coding for the identifier proteins on the cell surface. Send in an antibody solely for that protein which will cause the similar cells to be visible."

******

"So wait..." JJ said, confused. "You're saying that she has a second set of DNA that doesn't match the rest?"

"Yeah..." Chase said as they looked into the clean room, watching Foreman inject the DNA tag into one of Emily's IV lines. "I know it sounds strange... I've never heard of this happening before..."

"Well that's reassuring..." Morgan said sarcastically.

"I know that's not what you want to hear," Chase said, "But even if we don't know what caused the mutation, we _can _cure her. This tracer will identify all the foreign cells so that we can remove them."

"And then she'll be fine?" Reid asked, uncertainty edging onto his voice. Though Chase didn't actually answer before his pager went off, the uneasy look on his face was enough to tell them everything thing they didn't want to know.

******

Emily had slowly been weaned out of her chemically-induced unconsciousness. As she lay inside the confines of the MRI, listening to the loud humming of the magnet, she began to feel anxious, worried about what the scan would find. "What are you looking for?" she asked.

Cameron clicked on the intercom from inside the observation room. "We're seeing if the tag identified any more of the bad DNA," she explained, having already explained the unusual cause for her liver failure.

"Clump of affected cells in the marrow of the left femur. Explains the intermittent bleeding disorder," Foreman noted as the intercom clicked off.

"What happens if you find something?" Emily asked.

"We perform surgery to cut it out," Cameron answered.

"Affected areas in the heart, explains the hypertensive issues," Foreman pointed out another hot-spot.

"More transplants?" Emily asked.

"No," Cameron reassured, "You're colleagues can keep the rest of their organs..." It was a weak attempt at a joke and Emily smiled half-heartedly, clearly not reassured at all. Emily said nothing further, clearly trying to work through her anxiety over the prospect of further surgery.

"Scan's complete..." Cameron noted as the final slice of the brain was imaged. "Two hot-spots, but nothing in her brain. House was right, it's not neurological."

"Let's prep her for surgery..." Foreman said.


	7. Chapter 7

Rossi found Hotch in the hall, looking half-asleep as he rested on a bench. "You weren't in your room..." he commented on the obvious.

"The surgeon said I'd heal faster if I walk. I got this far and needed a rest." Rossi looked back up the length of the hallway, taking in the maybe fifteen feet between the post-op recovery room and the bench. "I wanted to see Emily," he added, "How is she?"

Grimacing, Rossi said, "She's going into surgery."

"Again?" Hotch asked, clearly surprised. "What for?"

"Well, it turns out that her liver tissue had different DNA than the rest of her body," he started to explain. Ignoring the confused looks from Hotch, he continued, "They've identified other places where the DNA doesn't match and they're going to remove them."

Apparently that news was too confusing for his tired brain to attempt to puzzle through, so he brushed past it. "And this is going to cure her?" he asked hopefully.

"They think so, but they've never encountered something like this before..."

"So, they still don't know what exactly is wrong with her?"

"Not that anyone will admit it in so many words..." Rossi smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "You want some _Jell-o_? My treat."

Hotch laughed. "They serve us _Jell-o _for free..."

"I know."

******

Once again, Emily lay on the table as surgeons cut into her to remove pieces of her organs. Currently, the incision ran the length of her left thigh, extending into the bone as they removed the foreign marrow cells.

Once again, the team paced nervously in the waiting room, desperate for this harrowing ordeal to be over. When Foreman and Cameron entered the waiting room, they all flocked to them, anxious for news on the surgery. "The surgeons are working to remove the affected bone marrow," Foreman began.

"Will she be able to walk after this?" Rossi asked, interrupting.

"With rehab, her leg should be functional," Foreman answered.

That earned him several suspicious glances. "What does that mean?" Morgan asked exasperatedly, "She'll be able to walk, but not run? She'll have a limp?"

"If everything goes well, she should have complete normal use of her leg," Cameron reassured. "In fact, she'll probably be even stronger than before."

"Once we close her up, we're going to snake a catheter through the femoral artery of her other leg, travelling up into the heart," Foreman explained the rest of the procedure. "Once there, the affected tissue will be removed and the normal tissue will step back in to replace it. Her blood pressure should return to normal and her other symptoms should clear up."

Everyone let out a sigh of relief at the first good news they had had in days. Cameron smiled warmly and added, "You should be able to take her home in a few days. I'll bet you're all getting sick of New Jersey..." she joked.

The team smiled, it was true. "Thank you for everything you've done," JJ said, genuinely.

******

The surgery had gone off without a hitch and things were finally looking up. For the first time in days, Emily appeared bright-eyed and smiling as the team sat around her bed. Chase looked at the gauge on the sphygmomanometer, checking to see that her blood pressure was finally in check.

Letting the air out of the cuff, he said brightly, "Congratulations, you're perfectly healthy. We got it all. Now, get some sleep, you can go home tomorrow."

"Thank you, Dr. Chase," she smiled.

As the door slid shut behind him, Emily was engulfed in a group hug. Everyone was so glad that she was finally better. "This can't be good for the new liver..." she said, her voice muffled from the centre of the hug.

******

"Hey Garcia!" Emily chirped into the phone.

"Emily!" Garcia cried happily, "Oh, I'm _so _glad you're okay! I was so worried..."

"Don't worry," Emily said, smiling, "I'm all better."

"Promise?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die." The silence that followed was full of disapproval. "Just kidding."

"You'd better be!" Garcia reprimanded. "So, when are you coming home?"

"Tomorrow."

Garcia trilled with happiness. "I'll be waiting! And you're not allowed to get sick ever again!"

Emily laughed, "I'll try harder next time."

"No, no next time... Don't make me confine you to a plastic bubble!"

"I won't."

******

Midnight blue sky flooded in through the window of Emily's hospital room, the moon and stars merely ghosts overshadowed by the lights of the city. Emily lay fast asleep, exhausted, sleeping off the toll that her ordeal had taken on her body. Morgan and JJ were curled up, also asleep, in the two chairs next to her bed. Finally, the entire team was managing to sleep well for the first time in more than a week.

Emily cracked one eye open, having been dragged from the depths of her sleep by the unshakable feeling that something was very wrong. It began as a small rattling.

Instantly, she was wide awake, looking anxiously about the room for the source of the noise.

The entire room seemed to be shaking and she clung white-knuckled to the rails of the bed.

Then, there was a gargantuan noise; it sounded like the _Mythbusters _had blown up the cement truck right outside the room.

Emily let out a cry of alarm, instantly waking JJ and Morgan.

"Emily!" Morgan said, watching as she began to convulse. JJ brought her hands up to cover her mouth, tears of fright glistening in her eyes. Morgan pressed the call button to get help. Foreman came sprinting in, along with several nurses who instantly set about trying to control the situation. "What's happening to her?" Morgan asked.

"She's seizing," Foreman answered, then called to one of the nurses, "I need clonazepam!"

"I thought you got it all!" JJ said, standing out of the way, frightened by the sudden cruel turn of events.


	8. Chapter 8

Cameron paced back and forth in the conference room. "Obviously we missed some foreign tissue, something is still wrong with her..."

"Seizures and exploding head indicate problems in the temporal lobe," Foreman agreed, "Sorry House, looks like it _is _neurological. This time you're wrong."

"The scan was clean," Chase reminded, "Not so much as a spot in the brain... We didn't miss anything."

"The tag must not have penetrated the blood-brain barrier," House said, "This time skip the IV, inject it directly into the brain."

******

"What's the hold up?" Garcia asked JJ, "I thought you guys would be back by now..."

"Yeah, about that..." JJ stalled, "It looks like we won't be making it home any time soon..."

"What happened now?" Garcia sighed.

"She had another seizure, the worst one yet... The doctors figure they must've missed some of the foreign tissue. They're trying to find it so they can remove it."

"Brain surgery?" she asked anxiously. She took the heavy sigh that rattled through the speaker as confirmation. "I sure hope this is all just a bad dream..."

"Don't we all..."

******

If anything, Emily seemed even more anxious during the second MRI scan. She fidgeted ceaselessly, chewing her lip apprehensively, struggling to keep herself from hyperventilating.

Cameron clicked on the intercom, "Emily can you hold still please. When you move it creates interference and we can't get a clear picture."

"Sorry..." she said, cognitively trying to keep still.

"Nervous?" Cameron asked.

She gave a pithy laugh, "Is it that obvious?"

Cameron smiled reassuringly, despite the fact that Emily couldn't see her. "Just a tad... Just try to relax. Even if it does come to brain surgery, it's very safe." Emily's smile was hollow, not quite reaching her eyes.

"No hot-spots," Foreman noted as the scan finished, "Brain's clean."

"It's not neurological?" Cameron asked incredulously. She looked up at the monitor screen, about to tell Emily that they hadn't found anything, but stopped in her tracks. "She's seizing!"

Foreman quickly hit the emergency stop to turn off the magnet before following Cameron into the scanning room. He gritted his teeth as they tried to control the seizure.

"There _has _to be something there," Cameron said firmly, "It _has _to be neurological, it's the only explanation!"

******

Morgan carefully sat down on the edge of Emily's bed and handed her a steaming mug of tea. "I know you're not allowed to have coffee... But I thought you could use a pick-me-up." She smiled her thanks, blowing on the drink to cool it off. "How are you holding up?" he asked gently.

She sighed heavily and when she looked up at him, meeting his gaze, he saw her shields fall away. "I'm scared..." she admitted quietly. It was the first time since she had been admitted that she had really broken down and allowed the horrors of her ordeal wash over her. Tears glistened in her eyes as she whispered, "What if they can't fix it?"

Morgan pulled her close and she sobbed against his chest as he whispered soothingly. "They're going to be able to fix it, you're going to get better."

His words seemed to do little to calm her. "I'll never see my mother again... Never get to tell her I'm sorry..."

It broke his heart to see her so defeated. "Shh," he interrupted, "You can't think like that! You're going to get out of here and then you can tell your mother whatever you want. You just need to stay strong." He gently rocked her back and forth until her tears slowed to be replaced by quiet hiccups. "You should get some sleep," he told her.

"Will you stay with me?" she asked, so softly he wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it. "I don't want to be alone, in case something happens..."

"Of course," he answered, settling into the chair by the bed. He reached out to take her hand. "I'll be here."

******

"Her symptoms are neurological, it _has _to be neurological!" Foreman argued.

"The scan was clean, _twice_," Chase reminded, "There's nothing there!"

"What if your neighbour is trying to steal your sheep too? You can't brand them, they all look the same... How are you going to know which ones are yours?" House asked. He turned to look at them, waiting to see what they came up with. After several moments of silence, he elaborated. "What if something is there, but the scan isn't picking it up? Maybe the tag doesn't work in the brain..."

Foreman considered, "Brain cells are structurally different, express a different protein..."

"So, how do we find it?" Cameron asked.

"I don't know..." House muttered, reaching for his tennis ball.


	9. Chapter 9

"Send her home," House said to the conference room at large.

"What?" Cameron asked incredulously.

"Make sure her blood pressure is stable and send her home," he repeated.

"Like nothing ever happened?" Chase asked.

"We removed all the foreign tissue we could find, cured the bleeding disorder... We've done everything we can."

"It's only been a day!" Chase reminded, "We don't know that we've fixed anything... Her symptoms could be intermittent like the bleeding disorder."

"This is crazy!" Foreman agreed, "She continues to have seizures, there's obviously still something wrong with her!"

"It could be psychological or epilepsy, it could be nothing... Send her home."

"This is negligence!" Cameron argued, "She's still sick and you're not going to help her?"

Her words fell on deaf ears, since House was already out the door.

*****

The sound of high heels clicking against the concrete floor followed House through the parking garage as Cuddy stomped after him. "You're just giving up on her!?" she called after him.

"You've got to know when to throw in the towel..." he shrugged. She wasn't sure if was really being lackadaisical or if he was faking it to make a point.

"You don't know the meaning of the word quit! Never have! You keep going until you come up with something so out in left field that no one else would ever have thought of it and you're usually right!"

"Like you said, sometimes I lose... I'm not God."

"Don't be pathetic!" she snapped. "You've had more difficult cases than this one, patients literally on death's door and never once have you thrown in the towel! You bully patients, family, and friends to get them to agree to whatever you think you need to do, no matter how insane; you break rules, completely disregard morals and usually logic. But now, you're just going to walk away?"

When her rant died down, he asked, "When did you develop such strong opinions about my cases?"

"There's obviously something wrong with her! She's scared and desperate... Just get together with your team, spend a few extra hours..."

"I guess we could amputate her left leg, that's where we found most of it... Maybe do a heart transplant, remove the affected organ completely..." he suggested sarcastically.

"If you have reason to believe that will help..."

"I'm not going to start lopping off body parts," he snapped, "But it is interesting that you'd give me the green light..."

"I just want you to do something."

He looked at her suspiciously. "What is it about _this _patient?"

"I don't think your Hippocratic oath condones refusing to treat _any _patient..."

Narrowing his eyes, he said, "No... There's something more... Why her?"

Exasperated, she snapped, "Fine, I'll put Foreman in charge of the case, but you'll have to make up for it with double clinic hours."

"Nonsense," he said, brushing past her back down the hall, "This case is of the utmost importance to me. If she dies, I'll never figure out why it's so important to you..."

******

"This is crazy!" Morgan said, "They've already found what's causing all her other symptoms, why can't they stop the seizures?"

"How many times have we been told they've gotten everything, that she's okay to be released?" JJ agreed.

"We can't expect them to be right all the time, they're only human. These are the best doctors in the country, their track record is excellent, they've cured some very prominent people. They will figure out how to cure her," Rossi said calmly, playing devil's advocate.

"Do you really believe that?" JJ challenged.

"I have to... The alternative is that they can't cure her... And if they can't, no one can..."

Morgan's expression made it clear that he believed no such thing. "I think we should have her transferred to a different hospital."

"Now why would you want to do that?" said a voice from the doorway. They all turned around in time to see House limp into the midst of the room. Noting their quizzical looks, he answered their unasked question, "I'm Dr. House."

"Do you know what's wrong with her?" Reid asked hopefully.

"Not as such..." he shrugged, "But like you said, we're her only hope."

Morgan glared and everyone braced themselves for a confrontation. "She's been here for more than a week and you still haven't figured out what's wrong! Twice you've told us that there's nothing wrong with her brain and yet she continues to have seizures!? Yet you expect us to believe that by some miracle you're going to be able to cure her?"

"Yeah, pretty much," he answered nonchalantly.

It was clear that his laid-back attitude surrounding the subject of Emily's illness was angering Morgan. Encouraging him to calm down and clear his head, Rossi suggested, "Morgan, why don't you take a walk?"

Deciding that it would look bad for a federal agent to assault a doctor working to cure another agent, Morgan nodded and said, "I'm getting a coffee, does anyone else want anything?"

JJ quickly took him up on that offer, "Yes, please; cream and sugar, make sure it's half and half."

There was a visible light clicking on in House's head. Just as quickly as he had burst in, he hobbled out again, muttering under his breath, "Half of one person..."


	10. Chapter 10

"How does one person end up with two different sets of DNA?" House asked, bursting into the conference room.

"We've been through this..." Foreman said, rolling his eyes.

"Our assumptions are faulty," he announced loudly. The team continued to stare at him blankly. "We assumed she's a person..." he lead them.

"Right," Chase said sarcastically, "The FBI isn't just covering up the existence of aliens, they've begun replacing people with them."

"Now, that's just silly," House said, "What if she's not _one _person, she's _two _people..."

"I'm not getting the metaphor..." Cameron said blankly.

"No metaphor... She has a twin."

"No, she doesn't," Foreman said, looking at him like he had lost it.

"Not a flesh and blood twin, not even a separate entity... at least, not since they were very young... like twelve cells young. Back in-utero, she and her sister got stuck sharing a room, there's no bunk beds, so they cuddle up to stay warm and never untangle. She's two people in one, it's called chimerism."

******

Still a little in shock from House's imprompteau entrance and exit, the team was startled when he once again burst into the room. "She's a chimera," he announced loudly.

They all looked at him, confused. "As in part-lion, part-dragon, part-goat?" Reid asked.

"Well, that's the idea..." House said, "But half-her, half-her twin."

Still, they looked lost, House having managed to explain everything without actually explaining anything at all. Having woken up since his last visit, Emily seemed alarmed by the sudden appearance of this very gruff man in her room. "I don't have a twin..." she said eventually.

"This twin lives inside you, specifically in your bone marrow, heart, liver, and brain. Small clumps of cells that don't work the same as the surrounding tissue." He paused, searching for the right metaphor to effectively explain the condition. "Your sister is like a drunk back-seat driver. Your body knows where it's going, but she convinces it that she knows a short-cut, causes accidents, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake... We've got to pull over, kick her out of the car."

"Why now? Why the sudden loss of function? Wouldn't a condition like that present itself earlier in life?" Rossi asked.

"Sure," House said, rolling his eyes, "Abandon the metaphor. Most chimeras go their entire life without knowing of the condition. It may have presented itself in subtle ways like bruising, slightly elevated blood pressure, or hearing anomalies. The liver failure resulted from damage building up over the years, the bad cells unable to form effective scar tissue," he explained.

"Does that mean you can find the bad brain cells or not?" JJ asked.

"Emily thinks differently than her sister because she thinks. If we can induce an explosion..."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Morgan asked.

"The foreign cells are in a portion of the brain that causes her to hallucinate explosions. We stimulate those neurons with an electric probe and trick the brain into creating a hallucination. The good cells light up and the bad ones stay dark and, voila, we know where to cut."

Emily's gaze became wide-eyed and distant, her grip on Morgan and JJ's hands tightened. Swallowing nervously, she said, "Brain surgery..." It was both a question and a statement of fact.

"_Really cool _brain surgery," House said, enthusiastically.

******

"The earliest record of chimeras in literature comes from the writings of Homer," Reid narrated, "It's also referenced in other early works such as Ovid's _Metamorphoses _and Hesiod's _Theogeny_. It's widely accepted that the chimera was a symbol of volcanic vents in the Lycian Way in Turkey, where the myth of Bellerophon and Pegasus defeating the chimera is believed to have occurred."

Morgan was about to stop Reid's explanation, but Emily interrupted. The endless stream of facts managed to placate her, taking her mind off the prospect of her imminent brain surgery. "What about genetic chimeras?" she asked.

"Originally thought to be quite rare in humans, research has come out suggesting that it's actually more common. Most never realize that they have the condition because the signs are so subtle, like small differences in phenotype or Blaschko's lines; it's almost never detected unless DNA testing is employed. The most well known example would be Lydia Fairchild..."

Before he could explain who that was, a nurse wheeled Hotch into the room. "Why don't we go get some coffee?" Rossi suggested to Morgan, JJ, and Reid, "Give these two some time alone..."

As the door shut behind them, Hotch wheeled himself over to the side of her bed. "Hey," he greeted softly, "How are you doing?"

Grimacing, she said, "Been better..."

"Are you nervous about the surgery?" he asked.

"I've never been more scared..." she confessed, "What if I don't wake up? What if something goes wrong?" She looked him in the eye and he could tell that she was fighting to keep her tears from spilling over. "How did you deal with that?" she asked quietly.

"I knew that if I didn't go through with the surgery then you weren't going to make it... That trumped whatever fear I was feeling." He reached out to take hold of her hand.

She was silent for several moments before asking, "Why did you do it?"

"Just helping out a friend..." She gave him a look that made it clear she wasn't buying it. He sighed and relented, "How could I have lived with myself knowing that you died when I could have prevented it?" It was a rhetorical question.

She remained silent for a moment, not meeting his gaze, and when she looked up again, tears were running down her cheeks. "And it might all have been for nothing..."

He pulled himself out of the wheelchair to sit next to her on the bed. Pulling her close, he attempted to calm her, "Shh, don't say that." As her sobs abated into quiet hiccups, he brushed away her tears. "It wasn't for _nothing_. Even if something happens on the table, I wouldn't regret it for a second because it gave you a few more days... that was all that mattered."

"Really?" she sniffled.

"Of course!" he declared with conviction, "In fact, I think I'd be even happier that I had done it... Because I'd know that you had a chance because of it, that you had a chance to say goodbye, that you had a little longer to spend with the people who care." She seemed on the verge of tears again at the depth of his sentiment. Quickly averting them, he added, "But you can't think like that, you're going to be fine."

He pulled her into a hug and she murmured, "I'm still scared..."

"I know..." he whispered.


	11. Chapter 11

Here's the last chapter... I'd like to thank everyone who followed along so faithfully and everyone who reviewed! I wanted to make this seem like a real episode of House, so just like each episode usually finishes with a fitting song, I've done the same. After the second page-break, I've included some lyrics which belong to _Where Were You_ by Alan Jackson; imagine (or better yet, listen to) the song playing while you read the last section. Enjoy!

*****

House, who was performing the surgery, cut away part of her skull to expose the brain. The heart rate monitor continued to beep quicker than normal, reflecting the anxiety she felt as she gripped, white-knuckled, at the arms of the chair. Cameron sat before her, monitoring her cognitive functions to ensure no brain damage occurred. "What's on the card?" she asked, holding up a square of paper, her voice muffled by her surgical mask.

"Light bulb," Emily answered without hesitation. Her eyes continued to flick nervously about the operating room.

"Start at ten," House said to Foreman, who was monitoring neurological function. The electric probe sent a jolt into her brain, causing her arm to twitch.

"What was that?" she asked, alarmed.

"It was just the electricity stimulating the nerves controlling your arm muscles," Cameron reassured.

"You're in motor function," Foreman informed House, "Try two centimeters back."

He sent another shock into her brain. "That tickles..." Emily said, curling her feet away from the perceived stimulus. If anything, it seemed to make her more uncomfortable.

"You're in sensory, getting closer," Foreman informed.

"What's on this card?" Cameron asked.

"Moon and stars," Emily answered easily. House shocked her brain a third time. Her breath hitched and she looked about searchingly. "What was that?" she asked, nervously.

"Emily?" Cameron asked.

"We've got something," Foreman noted.

"What is it?" Cameron asked Emily.

She shook her head. "Nothing... I imagined it."

"Brain waves indicate mild hallucination," Foreman said, "Neurons lighting up."

"Any dark spots?" House asked.

"Area's too fuzzy. Hallucination isn't strong enough."

"Turn up the juice," House commanded.

"Her blood pressure's already 160/110," Cameron cautioned, "Any higher and..."

"Riding the short bus is better than not breathing," House interrupted. "Take us to 100."

Another jolt. "Area's still too fuzzy to make any kind of distinction."

"Crank it up higher!"

"You've already exceeded the preset maximum," Cameron said incredulously, "Next step is brain damage!" This was doing nothing to quell Emily's already overwhelming anxiety.

"What was that?" House asked, faking alarm. He rattled the metal dish holding surgical equipment. "Oh my God!" He rattled the dish louder. The other occupants of the OR caught his drift. Giving cries of alarm they took several unsteady steps from side to side before stumbling backwards and catching themselves on the walls.

Emily's breath came in sporadic gulps as her brain filled in the gaps of the improvised scene before her. The whole room started to shake. Several loud explosions sounded all around. She gave a small scream and started to sob in alarm.

"There it is!" Foreman exclaimed. "See the dark spots?" he asked hurriedly, before the hallucination stopped and they lost the image.

Suddenly, the chaos began to fade away. The rattling stopped, the explosions died down, an inexplicable sense of calm began to settle over her. She could feel all the tension and anxiety melting away. "You've got it?" she asked, although she was already sure of the answer.

"Yep, we've got it all!" Cameron answered happily.

"Close her up," House said with finality.

"Everything's going to be normal again," Cameron reassured her.

******

Emily sat up in her bed, looking over her colleagues seated around the room, all sound asleep after celebrating her clean bill of health. She looked up at the sound of the door sliding open to admit yet another doctor.

Cuddy, having heard that House's patient was out of surgery, had wanted to see how she was doing before she was discharged the next morning. She quietly slid the door open, figuring that she would be asleep at this late hour, not wanting to wake her. She was a little surprised to find her awake and alert. "How are you feeling?" she asked quietly.

Emily smiled brightly, "Great!" After a pause, she added, "I couldn't sleep... Too buzzed about life..."

Cuddy laughed warmly then, as an afterthought, added, "I'm Dr. Cuddy, by the way."

Emily was silent for a moment as she concentrated, "I know you..." she said eventually, still struggling to place her.

Cuddy smiled, "It was almost twenty years ago, in Michigan..."

Emily thought back, trying to remember what had happened then. After a moment, it occurred to her, "I was thirteen, it was the year my dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer..."

"I was still in med school," Cuddy filled in, "Doing my rotation in oncology." Both women were silent as they remembered how Cuddy had befriended Emily, helping her through her father's illness, having already experienced first hand how difficult a family member's serious illness could be.

"That meant a lot to me... I don't know if I could have gotten through it if it weren't for you," Emily said softly, "I don't know if I ever told you that..."

"It meant a lot to me too... That's when I first realized I wanted to be a mother."

"You'd be a great mom..." Emily said, smiling genuinely.

Cuddy leaned down to hug her. "I'm glad you're okay."

From the doorway, House smiled, having finally gotten his answers. He was about to cross the threshold into the room, but stopped and turned away, deciding not to encroach on their moment.

******

_In a crowded room did you feel all alone?_

_Did you call up your mother and tell her you love her?_

_Did you dust off that bible at home?_

_Did you open your eyes and hope it never happened?_

_Close your eyes and not go to sleep?_

_Did you notice the sunset for the first time in ages?_

_Speak with some stranger on the street?_

_Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow?_

A nurse wheeled Emily towards the hospital doors and the SUV waiting to take her back home. The team followed around her, talking and laughing, filled with a happiness that they hadn't felt in ages. Foreman, Cameron, and Chase stood apart, watching them leave, smiling that they had saved another life. Not just one, really... By making sure Emily lived, they had given the others a proverbial second chance, a renewed outlook on today and tomorrow... Their world could keep on turning.

*****

Garcia let out a squeal of happiness as Emily walked into the bullpen. Instantly, Emily was engulfed in a hug that forced the air from her lungs. She laughed, smiling happily, as Garcia gushed over how much she had missed her and how worried she had been.

Morgan sat quietly on the last pew of the empty church, saying a silent prayer thanking God for saving Emily.

Rossi pulled his dusty bible off the shelf, pulling the well-worn rosary from between the pages.

JJ lifted Henry into her arms, sing to him softly. She needed to hold him close, appreciate the little things in life while she still could.

Hotch pulled back the corner of his shirt to reveal to Jack the scar running the length of his abdomen. "Cool!" the little boy exclaimed, before asking for a blow-by-blow recap of the surgery. Hotch smiled, thankful he had someone to love.

*****

Emily stood waveringly on the cobbled walk leading to her mother's front door. For a moment, she almost turned back, but this was something she had to do... She had almost died and then, where would things be? Their current relationship certainly wasn't the note she wanted to leave on, not the way she wanted her mother to remember her. It was a pity she had needed a near-death experience to come to that realization, but she had already paid the ferryman to row her across the River Styx and there was no going back. She took a deep breath and crossed the last few steps to ring the doorbell.

*****

Cuddy sat at her desk, an old photograph clutched in her hand. A dark-haired teenaged girl smiled up from its slightly warped surface, as she hugged a slightly older doctor, who looked like she hadn't quite grown into the role the white coat bestowed upon her.

She smiled, slightly forced, as she took in the bitter-sweet image. A constant reminder of a turning point in her life where she had finally felt confident as a person, as a doctor, and as a maternal figure... And yet, it denoted everything she still had yet to achieve, to have someone of her own flesh and blood who looked up to her with the same loving reverence that that lonely girl had so blindly bestowed upon her.

*****

House carefully set himself down on the sofa, pulling a large anthology of classical mythology towards him, flipping to the page emblazoned _The Myth of the Chimera_, a large oil painting of a ghastly amalgamated monster accompanying the title.

_But I know Jesus and I talk to God_

_And I remember this from when I was young,_

_Faith, hope, and love are some good things he have us..._

_And the greatest is love._


End file.
